Month / February 2014

by thegeepee

the moral ground for complacency

I am considering a very specific responsibility. Lets assume for a moment that there is an artist named June who has produced a body of work that has transformed both the conceptual as well as the interactive impact of art and of the chosen medium in which she worked.  For arguments sake we will say June worked with photography.

June’s body of work is recognised in her lifetime by a number of great minds as being focus and driven. Authors, philosopher and painters as well as collectors and curators all find her work to be of such great merit that they publicly and vocally speak to and about the work. The work is of such impact that even the powers that be during her lifetime decide it could become dangerous and decide to try and stop it from propagating. Of course these attempts do not function as June is both smart and wise.

The work is seen throughout the world and resonates in the work of other photographers. It becomes an ideal, a prototype, even a conceptual prototype which inspires others to follow a similar path pertaining to other topics.

June passes, as we all will and June’s child then continues to work with this fantastic body of work. And in time June’s grandchild takes up the flame and continues to make the work known and understood. By this time it has been over 100 years since the world has seen June’s work for the first time.

Lets make a conservative estimate here and assume that June’s work is now in 100 collections world wide.  Some of these are large, some are small.  Lets also assume that the chain of impact has influenced 1000’s of artists.

So here is my dilemma: who has the right to say what June’s work means? Who owns the right to research what and why she did what she did? And who has the right to say what or how Junes work can be shown?

I could argue that June has that right. June is dead though… can anyone else claim this right?

As I was reviewing this dilemma I did some research into the legal foundation for this kind of situation and found that, at least where I live, the right to create art, the right to reasearch and seek knowledge and the right to propagate that knowledge are protected by the foundational rights given to everyone in my country. For those who don’t know, I live in Germany.  The law I am speaking about is Grund Gesetz Abs.5.3.  here is the quote for the whole Abs.5

Article 5 [Freedom of expression]

(1) Every person shall have the right freely to express and disseminate his opinions in speech, writing, and pictures and to inform himself without hindrance from generally accessible sources. Freedom of the press and freedom of reporting by means of broadcasts and films shall be guaranteed. There shall be no censorship.

(2) These rights shall find their limits in the provisions of general laws, in provisions for the protection of young persons, and in the right to personal honor.

(3) Art and scholarship, research, and teaching shall be free. The freedom of teaching shall not release any person from allegiance to the constitution.

which I found here.  So if I were to be in this situation the problem would solve itself. Because this law is in place there is no way anyone can claim the right to June’s work. More importantly now one can stop others from learning about it.

But in the art world there are a lot of people who do not consider these kinds of laws as they are busy carving out a place for themselves in the history books. I have heard about this often.

So lets consider, for a moment that there were 3 parties that decided they could divide June’s work up in such a way so each had their won realm to work in.  One would be responsible for selling June’s pictures.  One would be responsible for researching June’s work and life. And the last would be the one who publishes the books about June’s work. And just to make things even more exciting lets assume that none of these people actually worked together, but rather decided that each should just work in their area and not cross the demarcation lines. What would happen to June’s work in this situation?  Would the work profit from it? Quite simply, no.

This would be an invitation for complacency. It would hinder all three as none of them could profit from the work of the other. It would also be a disgrace to June’s work.

Now I come back to my moral dilemma, what should I do if I were ever to be presented with such a request? Being as I am in Germany I could just plain ignore it as any agreement to this form of market split would be against the laws in this country and as such, could not be enforced. I could ask those who would ask me such to consider the meaningless position into which they are trying to manoeuvre themselves and me. I could appeal to masses in the hopes that they would support me. I could run in fear… no, I don’t think so.

Anyways, as this is not a situation I have had to deal yet I can save having to think about this until I have some free time during my summer break in August.

 

  • Share on Tumblr
by thegeepee

Artsy, Paddle8, Christies, eBay, Amazon and online sales in general

I was reading an article today about the development of the online art market. The gist of this article is that the investors are as yet unsure if the online market will become viable economically. There is talk about turnover sums and traceability as well as all sorts of indicators about how all this is supposed to work.

In my humble opinion this is the wrong way to look at this market.

The art market is a derivative of a very specific interactive process. That process has almost nothing to do with money, at least initially. The arts have always been a tool for education, or maybe explanation. True is that the people who create the work need to live, and as such need to get paid. The money being spoken about in the article, or indeed in most articles about the art world in the last years, is not the money the artists get though. The talk is about the money people are earning by buying and selling the work. I am part of this world of course. The work I buy for little money and sell for a lot of money is the profit I live from. Not all the work I buy and sell falls into this model. And certainly not all work I buy can be sold easily. That is a topic in an of itself. That being said there are percentual returns on sales made through things like auctions or web sites. All of these people have a large apparatus to finance and as such must focus on the numbers, of course. But in the end that is putting the carriage in front of the horse.

What I see missing in the online market is the place where people get a chance to understand the work they buy. Of course artnet and co. will tell you that they can show you how an artist has developed based on the statistical….. and so on.. and the horse is looking at the trunk again. We seem to have lost the places where the artwork and the artist is the instigator. Where it is ok to like or dislike a work regardless of it market position. I would love to say that this is the role of the gallery, but considering how many galleries are nothing more than showrooms for the famous or the fashionable I honestly cannot say that this is true.

Maybe this place defies specific definition. Maybe it is a bit like defining what makes a good character. I do think that we should place the entities that service this, our art market in the right place in the hierarchy of our understanding. That place is certainly not in front. If we can do that, and return to our own understanding, then maybe we can get the horse to pull the wagon again.

  • Share on Tumblr